The unseasonably warm, dry conditions leading up to February's Vancouver Olympic Games was the most significant weather-related event of 2010, according to a senior climatologist with Environment Canada.
Dave Phillips compiled a list of the top 10 weather stories of the year, and the spring conditions in the lead-up to the Games came out on top.
Cypress Mountain in particular was badly in need of snow as February approached. Concern about whether Olympic competitions would be held there grabbed headlines around the world. Organizers were forced to truck and fly in snow to build the courses, but snow finally began to fall just days before the Games began.
Second on Phillips' list was Hurricane Igor, which pummeled the Maritimes with powerful winds and heavy rain in late September. Washed out roads left 90 communities in Newfoundland and Labrador cut off from the outside world. Some of the damage has yet to be repaired.
Such extreme events may be a sign that weather patterns are changing, Phillips said.
"It's almost as if what we're seeing is either droughts or floods one year after the other," he told CTV News Channel. "It seems that weather is more chaotic and turbulent -- certainly more expensive -- and I think this year is probably a good example of that."
Third on the list was the Prairies' wet spring. Heavy rainfall brought flooding that washed out fields and left 5 million hectares of farmland unseeded. Western premiers called it the worst devastation central Canada had seen since the 1970s.
High temperatures across the country landed in fourth spot on Phillips' list. Canada had the mildest winter on record followed by the warmest spring, the third warmest summer and the second warmest fall. All told, 2010 was the warmest year for Canadians in 63 years.
Phillips said that global warming "certainly is an element" of the extreme weather seen across the country and around the world in 2010.
"Stick a thermometer in the planet and you're seeing warmer temperatures," he said.
In fifth spot was the powerful mid-December storm that packed 80 km/h winds and dumped 40 centimetres of snow between London, Ont. and Sarnia, Ont. The storm then moved east to Quebec and the Maritimes, blasting storm-weary New Brunswick residents with more heavy rain and strong winds.
Here is Environment Canada's top 10 weather stories of 2010 in full:
- Warm weather during the Winter Olympic Games
- Hurricane Igor
- Spring floods in the Prairies
- Warmest annual temperatures in 63 years
- December storm that buried parts of Ontario and drenched the Maritimes
- Summer storms in Saskatchewan
- B.C. forest fires
- El Nino's mild winter
- October "weather bomb" that affected Manitoba to New Brunswick
- Calgary's July hail storm, with golf-ball sized pellets
